Control

Control

Chapter 15: Cutler

It's not dissatisfaction. It's a feeling more akin to having been born in captivity. A seeping realisation that your dreams and ambitions are just too big, too rich for this domestic world.

Annie's P.O.V

"I needed to tell you something, so I died and came back through my history. Like how Lia took Mitchell through his past. That's what gave me the idea. Every single moment is here somewhere, you just need to…" The woman began to say, how in hell did she know who Mitchell was? Was she from his past? Someone he forgot to mention? She sure as hell couldn't be Eve…could she?

"How do you know about Mitchell?" I questioned.

"You told me everything. Mitchell. George and Nina. Lia. McNair. Gilbert. Herrick. These are the stories I grew up with." She replied could this really be future Eve? But how could she have come back in time to tell me something? Why would she need to tell me something? Surely she could tell future me.

"So what is it? This thing that you want to tell me." I asked, I wanted to be back home with my baby Eve as safe as I could be…with all these vampires around these days looking for her.

"Mum." She murmured reaching out for me, but I shifted backwards it wouldn't take some words about Mitchell or even Gilbert to convince me she was on our side. I'd learnt my lesson after Kirby.

"Just tell me. So I can go." I stated turning around looking at the place we were currently in, it reminded me too much of my time spent in purgatory.

"I have to show you." She replied as she opened one of the doors in the hallway.

"Show me what?" I asked as I moved towards her and the door.

"My present, your future."

Hal's P.O.V

"Hal, what the hell are we doing here?" Sophie asked as I quietly opened one of the doors allowing her to walk inside, I'd began asking myself that while we were on our way here, we were basically walking back into existence, in the vampire community anyway.

"Making sure the vampires that were here aren't anymore." I answered looking around the place, making sure that at least that the hallway we were stood in was clear of any threat. "Stay close."

She walked close behind me as we entered the main part of the building, and stood around a table of bones and dust were several vampires, but one stood out amongst the rest.

"Cutler." Sophie whispered.

"What are you doing here?" I questioned as he came from around the table to stand in front of us.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

Annie's P.O.V

Annie: So this is the future. Really?

Eve: For you, yeah.

Annie: Do people have jet packs?

Eve: No. No, mostly everyone's dead.

"We're just days away, you know. The Old Ones arrive soon. That's when it starts. At first no one believed it. They'd heard rumours but there were no photos, no footage. Then vampires killed the Prime Minister on national television." Eve explained, this future was not one I was looking forward to, how could this all happen? How could I let this all happen?

"And, um, what did we do?" I asked looking back at Eve.

"You wanted to get me somewhere safe. But the airports were under siege, so you brought me here. You, me and Tom. But everyone else had the same idea. There must have been fifty thousand people here, climbing onto ferries, yachts, container ships and tugboats. The Biblical Exodus. You told me the ships were groaning with the weight of them. And then the screams started. Vampires started killing people from the back of the crowd. There was this huge surge as everyone pushed forward, trying to get away. But there was nowhere for them to go. They just... You told me it was like the water was boiling. So many people." She answered looking sorrowfully at the water, this wasn't something I would want to go through, and no one would want to go through something like this.

"Someone must have fought back." I stated hoping the answer would be yes, hell hoping that there was still resistance in the future against the vampires, hoping that somehow the humans could destroy the vampires' control.

"Oh of course. Yeah, the whole country stayed under human control for a while, but they'd get so overwhelmed by refugees they had to start closing their borders and negotiating with the vampires. And then eventually they fell too." She answered, I knew it wasn't going to be all that hopeful, vampires were strong back in the present, but in the future they had more power, they had more numbers and most important of all the Old Ones were leading the charge.

"Um... I'm not saying that I believe that you are, um, you know... who you say you are." I said nodding towards her, Eve was the War Child, the Child that would bring about the end of the vampires, and she was supposed to humanities' saviour.

"But?" she asked though something told me she already knew exactly what I was going to ask her.

"Aren't you the saviour?" I asked she nodded in reply.

"I am."

Sophie's P.O.V

After our first encounter with Cutler and his little band of lesser vampires we were back at the warehouse once again.

"Hal, why are we back?" I whispered holding onto his arm as he lead the way straight to where more danger lay for us, I had always trusted his judgement on things but this wasn't exactly the best decision he could make. I wanted to be anywhere but here, even if we hadn't seen Cutler in fifty years, there was a reason for that.

"To see exactly why he is here, and what he knows about the Old Ones coming over to Britain. If he doesn't know anything we'll get out of here and make sure he doesn't tell any of the others of our return." Hal replied stopping momentarily to look down at me. "When have I ever let you down?"
"Never," I whispered he leant down pecking me on the lips before we were off again this time finally making it into the warehouse, where we likely to find Cutler, hopefully alone, it would be a lot better if he was alone. And funnily enough he was alone.

"Funny thing is, I've been thinking about you recently. Maybe that's why I buried the coroner there." He mused as he turned from looking at his map of the world, to look at us as we walked up the stairs.

"As a message for me?" Hal asked letting go of my arm and motioning me to stay behind him or a few paces behind him anyway, hopefully he could handle this, hell maybe even Cutler could join our 'team' he hadn't been one for killing back in the day and I doubt that has changed.

"No, nothing like that. I really did think you were proper dead, that the both of you were proper dead. No, more of an homage because of what I'm doing, I guess." He replied looking between the both of us, he couldn't believe that we were stood right in front of him at that moment in time.

"Which is?" we both asked at the same time, he laughed to himself most likely thinking back to the old us, the ones that turned him and took away his life, his wife and everything he had ever worked for.

"You're very curious. That's new." He murmured picking up a glass of blood…blood…damnit… "This is the crucible. This is where the Old Ones are headed. But here you are. Now that's not the behaviour of someone who wants to stay hidden."

"When do they arrive?" Hal asked his teeth gritted together, as he turned a domino piece around and around in his pocket, I placed a hand on his back trying to reassure myself and him that it was going to be fine, that we wouldn't lose it.

"Soon, I guess. No one knows. You're a circumspect bunch." He mused walking towards us. "Look, you could go straight to the top of the pile, the both of you. That's cool. That's your rightful place. All I ask for in return is when they write the history of what's about to happen, they give me a mention. And a statue. And maybe Brazil."

"Brazil?" I questioned what a strange country to ask for…he never seemed the exotic type; Hettie on the other hand loved South America.

"Yes, Brazil."

Hal's P.O.V

The effect, that same effect…the one I had longed for, for fifty years and it was finally back. Euphoric couldn't even come close to what I was feeling.

"I like your neck." I stated as I stared intently at the pulse point on Alex's neck.

"Are you aiming for enigmatic? Or... Because what I'm getting is sociopath." She joked; nervousness getting to her like all the other victims, believing that I wouldn't hurt them in anyway, but oh would I, their screams ringing out was the music of my night.

"I bet your skin tastes of salt." I murmured still staring at her pulse point, I could hear her heart beat, her blood rushing around in those veins ready to be drank dry.

"Okay, you know this is getting a little old. But lucky for you I'm yet to have sex under a coalition government, so..." she joked once more, but she knew something was terribly wrong with me, everyone was always afraid of me and she's no different than all of them. "Hal, don't do this. Just be nice."

"I'm not nice."

Annie's P.O.V

"Tell me about Tom." Eve asked as we walked through gates that reminded me too much of the old Nazi concentration camps.

"I thought you knew him." I replied, surely since he had travelled with us and always been one to protect Eve, in the present and in the future, she should know him quite well.

"Not very well." She answered looking at various parts of the place we were currently in.

"Well he's a child. He's lovely. He's like a pet. A bloody big one. Like a Saint Bernard or a horse or something. But you know he's physically incapable of lying or being cruel. So I do worry about him. Almost as much as I worry about you... um, you know who. But he's, yeah, he's just a kid really. He shouldn't be killing vampires, he should be getting disappointing A-level results." I explained, he really should be living a normal life, but his fate had made him a werewolf, and most didn't live normal lives…well Nina, George and him kind of did, but living with McNair for most of his life hadn't given him a great education and so he wouldn't be attending college or even University like the rest of the people his age.

"He died here. A few years ago the vampires rounded up all the humans and werewolves they could find. The humans were branded with an "H" and the werewolves with a "W" and put into these camps. There was an outbreak of cholera. Hundreds died. And the vampires brought back the dogfights." She explained as we stopped at a cage, one where they kept the werewolves and the humans, maybe even a cage where they held dogfights.

"That's what happened to Tom?" I questioned, it was horrible, to happen to Tom of all people, killed in a dogfight.

"He was a cold man. Difficult to like, if I'm honest. There were rumours he killed some humans by accident and never got over it. Some say he held back during his final dogfight. Even after he transformed. He'd rather have died than kill again." she answered, maybe he tried to distant himself so that he didn't harm Eve emotionally, he knew she needed to be protected in any way possible.

"And where did I go?" I asked, though I knew it wouldn't be nice to find out.

"After everything fell apart, you buried friend after friend. You began to lose control of your tangibility 'til eventually you just... drifted apart. Like smoke on the breeze." She answered, like what had happened with Kirby…I was not looking forward to this future.

"Glad I asked. "I murmured as the scene changed once more, we seemed to have arrived in some form of mansion or a very fancy office. The vampires' property more than likely. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Oh yeah. Yeah. It's Christmas." She replied shaking her head, as she opened a door revealing an open space with another floor around the side and stairs leading up to it on the far side of the room. "I wanted to show you what happened to Hal."

"Don't tell me. They chopped him into little pieces and sprinkled him over the HMS Belfast." I joked, the only thing I could do to lighten the tense mood that had been with us since she first began to show me what the future held for us all.

"Turn around." She said looking up at what she was pointing to I found a poster of a very menacing looking Hal…he'd returned to his old self.

"That's Hal?" I asked she nodded…if Hal had returned to his old ruthless self then what had happened to Sophie?

"One of their most ruthless commanders. Those camps I showed you, they were his idea. His violent, sadistic and, well, quite literally their poster boy." She explained looking away from the poster.

"And Sophie?" I asked she nodded towards the poster.

"She joined him, not as sadistic, tried to convince him not to start the dogfights up again, but then Mr Snow always could persuade her to see what her delightful husband wanted. And like a good little wife she is, she followed his orders to letter. Hal runs Britain with her by his side." She explained, somewhere deep down inside, I hoped she would have helped us, stayed away from the rest of the vampires…but then again she seemed to have followed Hal all her life, so why should this be any different. "You see my history and yours started to separate the moment I appeared to Leo and Pearl, Hal and Sophie."

"That was you. Why?" I asked, she'd brought Hal and Sophie to us, they'd been protecting her from all the threats…but from her time, they would kill her in an instant…is that why she wanted them to find her as a child…so they could kill her?

"I've been trying to rewrite history. I thought getting Hal into the house would do that. We're done now. I'm taking you home. And then I'll tell you what you need to do."

Tom's P.O.V

"We can raid the dressing up box and pretend to be human, but ultimately what's the point? Sooner or later we all go back to being the monsters we truly are." Hal snarled as he brushed passed me, something was wrong with him; it was like he was drunk.

"Hal…" Sophie whispered fear present in her voice, a glare from Hal silenced her, never had I ever seen them act like this to each other.

"What?" I asked earning a very evil laugh from him.

"You're a child, you know that? Watching you negotiate grown-up emotions is like watching a gorilla perform keyhole surgery." He sneered as he walked out of the room; I looked towards Sophie who couldn't look me in the eye what so ever.

"What happened?" I asked walking over towards her; she shifted slightly her eyes still looking anywhere but at me. "What happened to 'im?"

"He drank it ok, he drank some god damn blood." She replied it sounded as though she were both crying and fearful of Hal. "He lost control."